Hey guys! There is a thread stickied on this forum requesting those who have finished the application process to post results. I decided to do more than that and give my “application story.” If you do not wish to read that much, scroll to the bottom and raw stats/decisions will be posted there 
. In short, with rather meager stats, and significant drive, I achieved my goal.
Last summer/fall, I found myself on College Confidential utterly lost as to the college process. I had made the mistake of doing absolutely zero thinking about where I would want to go to school until the summer after my junior year. I knew I wanted to do something stem (was leaning engineering) so I looked up the best STEM schools and found myself in the trap of thinking it was MIT/Stanford or nothing.
And thats where this forum was a blessing. This forum opened my eyes to incredible schools such as RPI, University of Rochester, CaseWesternReserve, and even my local university, University of Utah. This forum showed me that yes, schools like HYPSYM are great and there is nothing wrong with striving for them, but we should also be aware and excited for many other amazing options.
However, this forum was also incredibly discouraging for me at times… but what I was being told was not unfounded. You see, when I first made a post on college confidential (cc) after my junior year, I had a great GPA, few AP’s my activities were perhaps unique but nothing wild, and I had an ACT of 28. My chance me type thread included schools like MIT, Stanford, Yale, Cornell… lots of reaches. And I could not even say why I wanted to go to these schools. As expected on cc, I was shut down pretty much felt like I was being told “you have no shot at those schools, don’t even try.”
Now I have never been one to quit, and for better or worse, sometimes my pride pushes me to do things that shock me. I was determined to prove these realistic CC members wrong. That I was someone who could go anywhere I wanted. So I refused to take schools such as these off my list. Even though at this time Colorado School of Mines was my top choice, I wanted to get into some of these schools for my own personal victory.
Unfortunately, I spent my entire summer out of state at a summer program and could not spend much time studying for the ACT, or writing application essays. That meant that the first semester of my Senior year became the most difficult semester of my high school career. I worked to balance varsity sports, academics, extracurriculars, social life, college apps, and ACT prep all at the same time. But just like the preferred method to eat an elephant, I took it one bite at a time.
And I saw results. I ended up raising my ACT to a composite of 32 with a math score of 35! And I got many essays done. But I still hadn’t actually really toured a college. So I chose to tour Cornell University with my only free weekend. And boy was that a life changing tour. I found my home, and actually wrote one of my Cornell essays about what I felt. Now I did not only want the personal victory, I actually wanted to go to a top school, and decided to apply early decision.
But I hadn’t taken my SAT Subject test yet and there was only one test date left, the November test date, which as after the recommended deadline for Cornell Early Decision. And I ended up doing significantly worse than I would have hoped scoring 640 in Math II and 650 in Chemistry, yikes!
If you gather anything from reading this rant I would want it to be this. Do not let a number define who you are, because not even those who care most about the numbers (the schools), really define you by the numbers. Because on December 10th, I found out that I was admitted to Cornell University’s College of Engineering. With below average test scores, and nothing to write home about in my activities, I was able to achieve my goal. As a bonus, it saved me a bunch of money in app fees by not submitting my RD apps
And I didn’t stop there, I was accepted into every school I ended up applying to, and earned a full tuition (plus stipends) Air Force ROTC scholarship to the school of my choice, guaranteeing my ability to afford Cornell, and making my transition to serving my country smoother.
It all could have gone south, and I may have found myself at a local university or community college. But that would not have been the end of the road. Because we can all keep fighting. Road blocks are not dead ends, just indicators that you might want to take a different road. Thank you for listening to my TedTalk 
Raw Stats:
SAT II: Math 2: 650, chem: 660
ACT (breakdown): 32 (32E, 35M, 31R, 30S)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.954
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 3/65
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Chemistry (3), AP Statistics (5), AP Calc BC (current), AP Human Geography (current)
Senior Year Course Load: 2 AP’s, 2 dual enrollment college courses, bunch of other fun stuff
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Chief of Staff of the Air Force Flight Academy student + top graduate
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): AFJROTC (Achieved Cadet Col, Vice Wing commander senior year), National Honor Society (Vice President), Varsity Baseball (Captain), Student2Student (Founding Member), Band, WUCT participant.
Job/Work Experience: Ski instructor for two years, gym receptionist for a summer, dominoes CSR for a semester
Volunteer/Community service: National Honor Society and AFJROTC - 120ish hours
Summer Activities: Chief of staff of the Air Force Flight Academy, SAME Engineering Camp, work
School Applications/Decisions
Cornell University: Accepted (and committed, yay!)
United States Air Force Academy: Accepted
Colorado School of Mines: Accepted + merit scholarship
University of Utah: Accepted + merit scholarship
Utah State: Accepted + merit scholarship
Other Schools: (completed app, did not submit)
Duke University
Case Western Reserve University
RPI
University of Rochester
GeorgiaTech
MIT
Yale University